er and
buffaloes were seldom out of his sight for a day together. His nights
were often disturbed by the howling of wolves, which abounded as much as
the other forest animals. His table thus abundantly spread in the
wilderness, and every excursion affording new views of the beautiful
solitudes, he used to affirm afterwards that this period was among the
happiest in his life; that during it, care and melancholy, and a painful
sense of loneliness, were alike unknown to him.

We must not, however, suppose that the lonely hunter was capable only of
feeling the stern and sullen pleasures of the savage. On the contrary,
he was a man of the kindliest nature, and of the tenderest affections.
We have read of verses, in solid columns, said to have been made by him.
We would be sorry to believe him the author of these verses, for they
would redound little to his honor as a poet. But, though we believe he
did not attempt to make bad verses, the woodsman was essentially a
poet. He loved nature in all her aspects of beauty and grandeur with the
intensest admiration. He never wearied of admiring the charming natural
landscapes spread before him; and, to his latest days, his spirit in old
age seemed to revive in the season of spring, and when he visited the
fires of the sugar camps, blazing in the open maple groves.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V.

Boone is pursued by the Indians, and eludes their pursuit--He encounters
and kills a bear--The return of his brother with ammunition--They
explore the country--Boone kills a panther on the back of a
buffalo--They return to North Carolina.

Boone's brother had departed on the first of May. During the period of
his absence, which lasted until the twenty-second of July, he considered
himself the only white person west of the mountains. It is true, some
time in this year, (1770,) probably in the latter part of it, an
exploring party led by General James Knox, crossed the Alleghany
mountains. But this exploring expedition confined its discoveries
principally to the country south and west of the river Kentucky. This
exploration was desultory, and without much result. Boone never met with
them, or knew that they were in the country. Consequently, in regard to
his own estimation, he was as completely alone in this unexplored world,
as though they had not been there.

He never allowed himself to neglect his caution in respect to the
numerous savages spread over the country. He knew that he